Not So Much Flying As Continuously Crashing
by Shrapnel33
Summary: Basically what it says on the tin. Quill and Gamora try to escape, but they have no idea what they are doing and flying (or crashing) by the seat of their pants.
1. Chapter 1

Sirens blared and yellow strobe lights painted the hallway as Peter and Gamora charged down it, dodging lasers that hit just a little too close for comfort.

"This is fun, right?" Quill grinned at his companion. " We're having fun?"

Gamora scoffed in disgust as they ducked around another corner. "If it were not for the possibility of death, I suppose one could describe this as 'fun', yes. I would perhaps choose 'stimulating' or 'thrilling'."

"God, you sound like Drax when you talk like that." Peter couldn't help but grin as they soared down the hallways, passing doors left and right. A symbol on the wide door just to his right caught his eye and he skidded to a halt, clasping Gamoras elbow before she got away. "Here's our stop!"

"Do you really know where we are going? How do you even know what any of these symbols mean?"

"Just a hunch." He flashed her a huge grin and punched the button next to the door. The double wide door slid open to reveal a landing bay. Unfortunately, this one contained no ships, but rather a large creature that sort of looked like a cross between the rancor from that Star Wars movie his mom had shown him as a child and a hairball Rocket had coughed up last month. He punched the button again as the creature turned and roared at him.

"And my hunch says not that one. How about this one?" he rhetorically asked as he raced across the hall to another door with the same marking with a different smaller symbol next to it (Bay 1 and Bay 2? Bay 3 perhaps?). Gamora gave an exasperated sigh as she remained in cover, firing off a few shots back at their pursuers when she could.

"Booyah!" Quill hollered as the door slid open to reveal a small pod looking ship waiting on the platform. "Lets rock this bitch!"

Gamora mentally waved off the odd phrase, having adjusted to the half-Terrans significantly different speaking habits. The two of them raced towards the ship, Quill slapping the close button for the bay door in an attempt to buy themselves more time, even if it was only a second. The ship door was open and waiting to receive them into its belly.

"This type of ship is unfamiliar to me, I hope you know how to pilot this." She said as they ran through the small cargo hold of the ship and into the cockpit.

"Eh, how hard could it be?" Peter smirked as he scrambled into the pilot's seat, or at least assumed was the pilot's seat, it was hard to tell since none of the three seats in the cockpit had a joystick or steering mechanism of any sort, but this one was slightly ahead of the other two. He started haphazardly pushing buttons and sliding levers. The back ramp lifted closed just as the bay doors slid open and he turned to his companion with a huge grin on his face. "Full disclosure, I have no idea how I did that."

Gamora scowled at him and turned her attention to the panel in front of her seat, peering closely at the markings above each control. This one bore two symbols and one was the same mark as the double door they had come through so maybe…

She pressed it and the large doors in front of them slid open, a faint green shimmer indicated there was still atmosphere within the bay. She pointed to the mark on the dash. "This means Bay Doors." She tilted her head at Quill.

"Nice job, missy." He ignored the glare she directed at him. He was at least mostly sure they were past the 'I will actually physically maim you if you call me that' part of their relationship. "My gut says this is the button that makes us fly." he declared as he pressed it with confidence. The ship immediately dropped onto its belly as the landing gear disengaged. If looks could kill, Peter Quill would have breathed his last.

"Alright, now at least I know how to prepare for landing. Uh.." His hand flitted across a dark screen in the dash as he was reaching for another lever. The ship instantly responded by flaring up its boosters on the left side wing, starting the ship into slow turn, eliciting the horrible screech of metal on metal. "Oh you have got to be kidding me." he groaned, tapping on different parts of the screen. The slow turn eventually had them facing back towards the doors they had entered the bay through where their pursuers now stood, staring and laughing (or could be assumed to be laughing, it was an odd chittering/screech noise, accompanied by pointing and slapping at each other. They seemed highly amused.) at the two of them trying to figure out the ship.

Gamora turned her glare to the three silver skinned creatures. Her deft fingers flew across the screen in front of her, even though it still remained black and unresponsive looking, allowing instinct to take over. The two remaining aliens immediately froze as the one in the middle slumped to the ground, his head removed by an "expertly" placed shot from Gamora. No way was she going to admit she had no idea how she managed that shot though. The two aliens opened fire on them again, one of them seemed to be focusing his shots on one specific corner of the front window in front of Peter, as if he knew of a structural weakness.

Quill noticed this and returned his focus to the dark screen in front of him. It gave no indication as to where to put his hands, so of course he was just going to wing it. The ship was slowly turning back towards the big doors again and he mentally ran through what he had touched before. Last time his left hand had been moving towards the right and he had dragged his middle finger from the outside edge to almost the middle about a quarter of the way down the screen. So maybe if he did the same with his right hand going towards the left? It was going to be his first try at least, the big doors were almost completely in his front view and that super focused little dude was following them around, still firing at that one spot. He was standing between them and the exit now and he didn't seem to have accomplished his mission. Too bad for him, good for our intrepid heroes.

"Here goes nothing." Peter muttered to himself as he flicked his right hand across the screen. The right side boosters sprang to life and the ship skidded across the floor towards the exit. The alien attempted to tuck and roll to the side, but the low wing caught his shoulder and sent him tumbling out into space with them. Quill whooped as they slowly flew away from the alien satellite.

"Yeah! High five!" he hollered, holding out his hand for the highest of fives from his green skinned friend. She stared at his hand and then at him.

"This ship must be capable of moving quicker than this. Why don't you ask your intestines how to achieve that."

"Self five!" Quill clapped his hands together, determined not to leave himself hanging. He bobbed his head and vocalized his own little victory song to himself as he felt around on the dash again. Attempting the same inwards swipe thing on the screen again didn't seem to make it go any faster, but maybe if he tried at the halfway down point…

The two friends were suddenly sucked back into their seats and the view out the front window was streaked in black and white. The ride was rough and Quill desperately reached for the screen, attempting to reverse the move he had done in the hopes of dropping back into regular speed.

"Quill! Make it stop!" Gamora hollered at him, bracing herself against the seat.

"I'm trying, ok! Give me a break, it's my first time driving one of these!" he gritted his teeth, pulling himself forward to reach the dash.

Before he could reach it, the weakened spot next to the frame around the window suddenly fractured, sending tendrils careening through the glass.

"Oh, that son of a-" was all he got out as the emergency protocols engaged and they immediately dropped back into normal space. Gamora was thrown into the dash, her reflexes and enhancements stopping her from hitting too hard and causing injury. It still jarred her enough that she could tell she was going to have a sore neck. She groaned as she sat back with her eyes closed, rubbing at the back of her neck.

"Quill. Are you alright?" The lack of a snappy reply had her in her feet in an instant. Peter was slumped across the dash, completely unresponsive. "Quill!"

She gently pulled him back into the seat, his head lolling to the side. Blood poured from his nose and a gash to his left eyebrow, making him look extremely pale in stark contrast to the crimson. "Quill, can you hear me?" she asked as she gently tapped his face. No response. "Quill! Peter!" she was basically screaming at him, but not even an eye flutter.

A shrill beeping suddenly pierced through the cockpit. Looking out through the cracked window it became abundantly clear why the ship was making so much noise. They were headed straight for a blue and green planet, which already filled most of the view.

Gamora quickly manhandled Peter out of the 'pilot's seat' and into the third seat in the cockpit, back and to the left of the center seat. At least the seatbelts were universally understood and she deftly buckled the five point harness over his chest, pulling it tight to ensure he wasn't going anywhere. She stood and turned back to facing forward, took one look at the cracked window and tapped the button on his ear earpiece, trusting it would cover his face as she slipped into the pilot seat and buckled herself in.

She had no idea where to start. The language was so foreign and the only two words she had figured out were 'door' and 'bay', which really did not help when it came to doing an atmosphere entry and landing. Or even turning and avoiding the planet entirely. That didn't seem feasible at this point and she didn't want to risk getting caught entering the atmosphere horizontally if she failed, so keeping the nose downwards for now seemed like the best option.

Vertical may be better than horizontal, but it was unmistakably more terrifying, what with the combination of rapidly approaching ground and the occasional pop as the cracks spread across the window. The whole ship felt like it would rattle apart during entry and she could feel it getting hotter in the cockpit. She looked back at Quill as another crack shot across the window. The blank glowing red eyes gave nothing away about his condition, but the fact he was very much dangling from the harness showed he hadn't woken yet.

A sliver of the window popped out and suddenly the whole thing was gone, leaving just a constant flow of wind hitting her right in the face. She scrambled blindly for the control screen, swiping her fingers straight down in an attempt to make it straighten out. It made sense in a backwards kind of way. This whole ship was so unpredictable, it was worth a shot.

It didn't level the ship out for the most part, but now it was doing a sort of spiral spin as it came in at an angle, low enough now that it was plowing through tree trunks. Branches slapped along the top and side of the cockpit until the ship came to a sudden stop and her vision went black.

* * *

So in my Google Docs this story continues on. And it crosses over with another Marvel movie that is now a few years old and has more continuation on, and basically the crossover would really mess with the flow of the MCU (Which I hate messing with the flow of canon, unless something is severely messed up), so I don't know if I should attempt to finish what I have in my Doc... As it is, I wrote this about 5 months ago so I've lost my "groove" on pounding it out, but I'm still hoping for some inspiration to hit me maybe?

Anyways, comments appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

Holy crap, first story I have ever posted a second chapter to. Yay me. This story was always meant to be a Captain America crossover if I continued it, so it hadn't been tagged as such just in case I didn't. This is set during Captain America: Winter Soldier when Steve and Nat are going to the base where they find Zola's computer. There's one more chapter, just gotta figure out how to finish it!

Natasha sat up straight all of the sudden, peering at the treetops out the driver side window. "Did you see that?"

Steve glanced in the direction she was looking, trying to look in short spurts to avoid keeping his eyes off the road for too long. "See what?"

"It kind of.. Looked like a chrome bullet with wings.."

"Are you sure it wasn't a reflection in the window of something?" Steve glanced at her quizzically.

Her eyes never left the treetops. "No, I'm sure, I saw it break atmosphere and it spiraled into the trees." A cloud of smoke started to billow out of said trees and she nearly slapped Cap as she quickly pointed. "There! Do you see?"

"Yeah, I see." he said as he pulled the truck off the road and into the ditch on the far side. A narrow dirt road meandered in the general direction of the smoke until it turned back to the west, away from their destination. "I could use a jog anyways." Cap smiled at Nat, who was tired of sitting in the truck as well.

The two set off at a light jog. For Nat it was anyways, for Steve it felt more like a brisk walk. He judged the smoke to be about a mile and a half away. If they were even able to go double what they were now it wouldn't take long at all.

Natasha sensed his impatience and picked it up a bit. She would really rather not be sweaty for the rest of the day, but they didn't have a whole lot of time to be off the road either.

They made good time reaching the source. It was definitely a spaceship of some sort and was decidedly not of human design. It was in rough shape and appeared to be laying on its right side, the wing from that side was about a quarter mile behind it, taken off by a tree apparently. The belly of the ship was visible to them and covered in scrapes in a circular pattern on the belly.

"What on earth could have made those kind of scratches?" Steve mused out loud.

"Pretty sure whatever it was was not on Earth." Natasha replied.

They slowly made their way around the nose of the ship. The front segment of the windshield appeared to be completely gone, which made it easier to spot the green skinned woman sitting in the front seat. Her head hung down pointed at the ground, her black and magenta hair obscuring her face. Another limp figure was hanging from a seat at the 'top' of the cockpit, his face looked like it had been replaced with a metal plate with glowing red eyes, a tuft of curly light brown hair spilling over the forehead.

"So. Not human. I would say we should call someone about this, but I really don't know who at this point." Cap said as he grasped the edge of the empty front window. "You mind covering me?" he asked over his shoulder. No need to ask as Natasha was already holding her gun trained on the green woman.

Steve hoisted himself up into the cockpit with ease, warily eyeing the pilot the whole time. He noticed a weapon of some sort strapped to her hip and carefully extracted it from it's holster, tossing it down to Nat. He had only briefly looked away to ensure he wasn't dropping the weapon on Nat's head, but it was long enough that when he looked up again a second blade was pressed against his throat.

"Hey, whoa, we're trying to help." he said in a calm, even tone.

The alien woman's brown eyes scrutinized him closely, scanning him up and down and glancing down at Natasha. She seemed to be gauging how much of a threat they posed to her and if she could take them in a fight.

She seemed to make up her mind and slid the blade back into its holster on her hip. Whether that meant she found she had no prospects of winning against them or they held little threat to her, Steve couldn't say. She was about the same size as Natasha and he knew very well what kind of damage Natasha could do on her own.

The green woman hooked her legs on either side of her seat and slapped the release on the harness holding her in place. The fact she was able to support herself in an almost horizontal position through core and thigh muscles alone was an admirable feat. She reached above her and grabbed onto the bottom of the console, intending to pull herself up to her companion. That was the plan anyways. Her right arm nearly gave out as she put her weight on it and she quietly hissed at the pain. With only her left arm she managed to pull herself up so she was crouched on the side, or rather the "top" now, of her seat, leaning back against the floor of the ship.

Steve stayed still while he watched her move. She was obviously still wary of them and he didn't want to make himself look like a threat since she wasn't actively hostile against them. He watched as she glanced uncertainly between her injured arm and her companion still belted to his seat.

"Can I help you? Please?" he asked gently, spreading his hands to show he had nothing in them.

Her sharp eyes seemed to bore into him, searching for hostility or ulterior motives. She found none and gave a short nod.

Steve moved slowly around the back of her seat, standing on the one below the other passenger. He gently prodded at the figures arm, surprised to find the only hardness to the body was from dense muscle. With the metal plate for a face he expected the body to be a robot or android or some other out of this world steel man. Since the body was in fact humanesque he had no doubts he could hold the body over his head.

He shimmied his hand in between one arm and their (his? Probably, the body seemed masculine) torso, across their back and under the other arm and scooped his other arm under the legs, grasping their knee tight enough to hold but hopefully not bruise.

When he felt he had a firm grip he nodded to the woman kneeling above him. She reached across and pushed the harness release. The cords easily fell away and he gently lowered the body to his chest. This close now he could tell that their chest was rising and falling steadily as they breathed.

Moving painfully slow under the hawk like glare of the alien woman, he maneuvered through the broken windshield and gently placed the body on the ground, the bright sunlight shining warmly on them. Steve figured the warmth would feel better than the shade, what remained of the ship felt quite chilled.

He turned back to the woman, whom Natasha hadn't taken her eyes off of, and held a hand out to her, offering to help her down. She blankly stared at him.

"Do you understand me?" Now that he thought about it, she might have only been getting the gist of what he meant through his tone and body language, for all he knew she could only communicate through chirps or growls or-

"Yes."

"Uh, ok, I'm Steve. This is Natasha."He gestured to the redhead standing next to him. She gave a wave with the hand not holding a gun against her thigh and smiled grimly.

The alien woman again looked between the two blankly.

"And uh.. You are..called?" Steve really didn't know what to say. He knew there were people out there besides humans of Earth, but asides from the Chitauri, most (or rather both) of them looked just like other humans, asides from being a little more imposing and intimidating. Of course he already knew one green person, but he was a bit… terrifying when he was around. And really didn't speak much. Or at all. So far she had that in common with him.

"I am Gamora."

"Ok Gamora, do you want to come down? Let us take a look at your shoulder?" Steve offered his hand to her again.

"My shoulder will be fine shortly." She slapped his hand away and gracefully lowered herself out of the cockpit. She warily walked around Steve, taking care not to end up between the two humans and crouched next to the body on the ground with him between her and the two Avengers. She reached down and tapped on the plate towards the back of the head and the plate quickly dissolved to reveal the blood covered face of a man who looked to be in his early to mid-30s.

Natasha stepped forward and crouched a couple feet away, peering at his face. "What's his name?"

"Peter Quill."

"He looks human."

"He is Terran." Gamora gently started wiping blood off of Quills face, without cloth she was merely spreading it around though.

"Really?" Nat shook her head. "I guess people have made it off the planet."

Gamora realized her attempts were futile and leaned back on her haunches. "What provokes that comment?"

"This planet is Terra."


End file.
